She seemed to be choking. She raised her handkerchief to her lips, and when she took it away again it was spotted with blood. The priest, with his arms rigidly crossed in front of him, waited till the attack was over.
'You know it all, don't you?' she resumed, in stammering accents. 'I am a miserable guilty woman, I sinned for you. But give me life, give me happiness, I entreat you!'
'You lie,' said the priest slowly. 'I know nothing; I was ignorant that you were guilty of that wickedness.'
She recoiled, clasping her hands, stammering, and gazing at him with a look of terror. And at last, utterly unable to restrain herself, she broke out wildly and recklessly:
'Hear me, Ovide, I love you, and you know that I do, do you not? I have loved you, Ovide, since the first day you came here. I refrained from telling you so, for I saw it displeased you; but I knew quite well that you were gaining my whole heart. Then it was that I emptied the house for your sake. I dragged myself on my knees, and became your slave. You surely cannot go on being cruel for ever. Now that I am ill and abandoned, and my heart is broken and my head seems empty, you surely cannot reject me. It is true that we have said nothing openly before; but surely my love spoke to you, and your silence made answer. Oh! I love you, Ovide, I love you, and it is killing me.'
She burst into another fit of sobbing. Abbé Faujas had braced himself up to his full height. He stepped towards Marthe and poured out upon her all his scorn of woman.
'Oh, miserable creature!' he said. 'I hoped that you would be reasonable, and that you would never lower yourself to the shame of uttering all that vileness. Ah! it is the eternal struggle of evil against will. You are the temptation from below that leads men to base back-sliding and final overthrow. The priest has no worse enemy than such as you; you ought to be driven from the churches as impure and accursed!'
'I love you, Ovide,' she again stammered; 'I love you; help me.'
'I have already come too near you,' the priest continued. 'Go away and depart from me; you are Satan! I will beat you if it be necessary to force the evil spirit from your body.'
She sank into a crouching posture against the wall, silent with terror at the priest's threatening fist. Her hair became unloosened, and a long white lock fell over her brow. As she looked about the room for a refuge, she espied the big black crucifix, and she still had strength left to stretch her hands towards it with a passionate gesture.